[ic] Re: User options

Bill Carr bill at worldwideimpact.com
Wed May 10 07:21:55 EDT 2006


On May 10, 2006, at 4:20 AM, Toni Mueller wrote:

>
> Hello Bill, hello Peter,
>
> On Thu, 06.04.2006 at 09:51:21 -0400, Bill Carr  
> <bill at worldwideimpact.com> wrote:
>> On Apr 5, 2006, at 11:08 PM, Peter wrote:
>>> On 04/05/2006 07:18 PM, Bill Carr wrote:
>>> That's a really tough one.  The best way to go is to store the data
>>> encrypted on one server, then allow that server access to another
>>> server which will have the necessary private key to unencrypt the
>>> data and push the transaction through the credit card processor
>>> (but does not store the data post transaction), then you can keep
>>> the encrypted data seperate from the key required to unencrypt it.
>>> There are probably other ways to do this, that is just one way that
>>> comes to mind.
>
> I think this is a bad idea. If the customer (the shop server) can
> decrypt the card details, the attacker can do it, too. So you gain
> nothing except for a second computer.
>
>> It has been a burden for us to walk our customers through setting up
>> their PGP keys. We have been using Windows Privacy Tools. Our
>> customers are mostly non-technical and often get confused by the
>> process. Almost all of them are on Windows. We are also limiting them
>> to using Outlook Express for e-mail because there is a WinPT plugin
>> for it. What are some easier ways to get non-technical, remote users
>> setup with PGP?
>
> Try to set them up using Thunderbird (or SeaMonkey) plus Enigmail plus
> GnuPG which is *MUCH* better for PGP usage. For one, it can do
> PGP/MIME, and you will transparently see the contents of your
> PGP-encrypted attachment much in the same way that you get to see an
> attached PDF in your email - you still need to enter the passphrase,
> however.
>
> If you want to see the credit card number in the admin screens, then
> you need to de-couple the real shop and the admin screen to run on
> different machines, and prevent the shop server from ever accessing  
> the
> admin server where you need to have the private key for backend usage,
> in addition to having extra hard security on that box to prevent it
> from being cracked.
>
>
> FWIW, WinPT uses the Windows clipboard and can therefore be used
> together with any email program.
Hi Toni,

Thanks for the comments. For the record, I wrote the bit about WinPT  
being too hard and not the bit about the two server solution above.  
Will try Thunderbird plus Enigmail plus GnuPG.

Best,
Bill



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